135 results found
Fulfilling Your Personal Definition of Happiness Is Not God’s Goal
Our agenda, our definition of what a good God should give us, is a life that is comfortable, pleasurable, and predictable; one in which there’s lots of human affirmation and no suffering.
How Creativity Can Fuel Your Worship
If God created us in his likeness, wouldn’t he make us with creative minds and hands? What if engaging in creativity could draw us into deeper worship of our Creator God?
Orthodoxy and Heresy Orthodoxy means right doctrine or belief. In one very important sense it is essential to salvation. Although we are saved entirely by the grace of God, not on the basis of the …
Should We Pray in, for, or to the Holy Spirit?
While it is possible for Christians to pray to the Spirit, for the Spirit, and in the Spirit, the Bible overwhelmingly focuses on one of these.
Is It Fair That God Hardens Hearts?
Is it fair that God accomplishes reprobation by withholding grace and by hardening hearts, blinding eyes, and deafening ears? It is crucial to remember two truths.
Actually, Goodness and Mercy Don’t Follow Us
When we see it or experience it personally, human goodness can be truly amazing. It can be life-giving and liberating. So, too, steadfast love.
How Do I Follow Jesus When He Is Not Here?
Jesus knew that he would not always be on earth, so the command that we follow him was relevant not only for his physical days on earth but for all time.
Jesus is king. Jesus obeys. How do we hold those two truths together? And what does it teach us about any authority we’ve been personally given?
A common objection to unconditional election is that it’s unfair. Paul directly answers this objection in Romans 9, and Jesus indirectly answers it in Matthew 20.
10 Key Bible Verses on God’s Providence
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will . . .
10 Things You Should Know about the Holy Spirit
When you find your mind wandering or getting lost in the details of pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit), just call back to mind the basic Christian confession that there is one God in three persons.
The Shepherd Can Lead You through the Valley of Darkness Because He’s Been There
Our great familiarity with Psalm 23 as a whole might cause us to miss the stunning way the shepherd leads the sheep for his name’s sake.
God’s word and his holiness ought to bring us to our knees in fear, reverence, and obedience. And they ought to make us ask for a mediator—someone to act as a go-between for us and God.
3 Times You Should Disobey Authority
No human authority is absolute. Authority is always relative to the assignment given by the Authority Giver.
Podcast: Have We Domesticated the Cross? (Jeremy Treat)
Jeremy Treat talks about how the doctrine of atonement is often misunderstood by believers and unbelievers alike and about the impact that it should make on our day to day lives as followers of Christ.
10 Key Bible Verses on God’s Holiness
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim
10 Things You Should Know about the Atonement
Through his death on the cross Jesus accomplishes reconciliation, victory, removal of shame, justification, adoption, propitiation, glorification, healing—and much more!
Is It Fair for God to Judge Those Whom He Predestined? (Romans 9)
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
Why Elisabeth Elliot Changed Her Beliefs about Finding God’s Will
Elliot had left Ecuador with a changing understanding of God’s will. Circumstances had forced her to look long and hard at her beliefs about God’s guidance.
The Psalms Are Both by and about the King
Bruce K. Waltke, Fred G. Zaspel
Fundamentally, the Psalms are both by and about the king. The Psalter can be thought of as a royal hymnbook, and its individual psalms have the house of David as its subject matter and point of reference.
What Is Our Friendship with God Supposed to Look Like?
We think that communion with God, or friendship with God, is some sort of secret, mystical, spiritual experience, but it's not as complicated as we might be tempted to think.
Podcast: Enjoying Food, Sports, and the Rest of God’s Good Gifts (Joe Rigney)
Joe Rigney talks about the biblical command to love God and turn away from idols, and he discusses how to navigate the confusing task of being in the world but not of it.
How Can God Be Both Righteous and Sovereign over Evil?
Everything that happens unfolds according to God's plan, without exception. But If God planned all things that ever come to pass, how is he not also the author of sin?
An Attribute of God That Isn’t Discussed Enough
To talk about the aseity of God, then, is to say that God is from and of himself. He is completely self-originating and dependent on nothing other than himself.
Reading the Bible Gathers a Family from Every Tribe and Tongue
Without the Bible, there would be no ingathering of God’s people, and without the Bible, there would be no beautification of the bride. So everyone who enters the people of God by faith comes by the word.
How to Improve in Our Reasoning
All our knowledge imitates God’s original knowledge. And this imitation is mysterious, because God’s knowledge is mysterious.
Can I Really Have Friendship with the Triune God of the Universe?
Because of everything that God has done for us in Christ, we can shockingly have a relationship—a friendship—with God.
Our Friendship with God Is a Two-Way Street
Most Christians know that they are supposed to do some basic things: go to church, avoid sin, read the Bible, and pray. But what do any of those things have to do with being God’s friend?
4 Privileges We Enjoy as Friends of God
Our friendship with God isn’t just a vague concept filed away in heaven, it’s a permanent and stable reality that gives shape and structure to our lives.
Podcast: How Does Life Change If God Is Actually My Friend? (Mike McKinley)
Mike McKinley talks about what it means for us as Christians to be friends of God, about the friendship that Jesus had on earth, and about what it looks like for us to lean into our friendship with God.